Текст книги "Death Trap"

Автор книги: M. William Phelps

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

55

It did not take long for Jessica to cause problems from behind bars. In an almost relentless manner, she sent Judge R. O. Hughes letters. Long, tedious, accusatory and—well, in the end—pathetic diatribes describing the conditions of her imprisonment and the fact that her court-appointed attorneys were acting extremely unethical, she wrote. Jessica demanded that her legal team be replaced: I cannot work with them. She accused them of asking her to commit perjury [and] injure another client of theirs.

As they headed toward the end of 2002, it appeared that Jessica and Jeff were going to be tried together the following year, 2003. The Hoover PD was still working on Jeff. Roger Brown’s crack investigative team was trying to break the fallen cop, hoping he might cut a deal. Then the focus could be put exclusively on Jessica.

Jessica was not going to back down. She was in this for the long haul. She told anyone who would listen that she was innocent. She was going to prove it when she had her day in court.

Pregnant, Jessica was scheduled to give birth in the neighborhood of mid-to-late September. She and Jeff’s case was transferred to Judge Virginia Vinson’s Tenth Judicial Circuit Court in downtown Birmingham. Vinson, a stunning middle-aged woman with short brown hair and a charming smile, was fairly new to the chamber. She had been a Criminal Division judge since January 2001. A graduate from Samford University and the Birmingham School of Law, Vinson had nineteen years in private practice behind her as half of Wilkinson & Vinson before taking on the thankless job of criminal court judge. If there was one thing about Judge Vinson everyone could agree on, it was her tenacity to run a tight ship, and not to allow cases to fall on the conveyor belt of postponement. She kept her attorneys on schedule and focused on moving their cases forward. In learning that Jessica was in the final trimester of her fifth pregnancy, Vinson issued an order to keep the double-murder suspect’s court appearances to a minimum until after she had the baby. There was no need to put any additional stress—other than what she was going through already—on the accused murderer and mother-to-be.

After getting word of the judge’s decision from family members, Jessica became irate. She was appalled that her case was being held up. The idea that she could not argue for bond in Vinson’s courtroom before having the baby brought tears to her eyes, she said in letters. It wasn’t fair. She needed to be home with her husband, preparing for the birth. The prosecution had not proven a thing! What about being considered innocent before being proven guilty?

On the night of September 25, 2002, five days past her due date, Jessica wrote the judge a long letter, describing her feelings. It turned into what was a ten-page, single-spaced missive, replete with accusations and speculations, random thoughts and a complete firsthand account of Jessica’s opinion of prison life.

Jessica wrote that she’d had her hopes set high that she was going to make bond, now that a criminal judge was behind the gavel. Maybe a criminal judge, if no one else, would see how she and Jeff needed to be together, not only to give birth to the child, but to begin to build a credible defense. Obviously, Jessica wrote, waiting means that my husband and I will be separated for the birth. . . . She said she wouldn’t have any support if that were the case. It appeared that Detective Laura Brignac’s wish—that Jessica would give birth alone, and the child would be quickly taken from her arms—was about to come true. And it was clear that Jessica was scared to death of that happening. She wrote how she was terrified to give birth alone.

After she had the child, Jessica wrote to Judge Vinson, within forty-eight hours, I will be forced to leave my newborn. There would be no bonding or breast-feeding. She talked about how she’d had a history of postpartum problems and medical difficulties: I have nearly bled to death. . . . She begged for bond, Please give it to us now.

As the letter continued, Jessica spoke of how the last seven months had been hell on her and Jeff because of the accusation. She wrote she deserved a chance. But she realized that in the real world you were guilty before you were able to prove innocence. She called herself a decent human being. Then she promised she would, when given the opportunity in a court of law, prove her innocence as well as her husband’s. Still, with all that said, if the court took away the moment of birth between a husband and his wife, such a special time, it was something—a memory—she and Jeff could never recover.

Lost forever.

For another half a page, Jessica ranted about how the system was designed in favor of the prosecution. As much as she understood the reasons behind it, she was only asking for a chance to spend that mother-child connection time before trial with her newborn. She had been on bed rest, in isolation, in the medical block of the jail since August 18. She wrote she had been assaulted, threatened, harassed. None of the deputies inside the jail, she wrote, would help her. Instead of making out a complaint, she wrote, they laughed in her face, saying, “Get over it.”

There was never any evidence presented to support these accusations. On top of that, this would become a common battle cr y of Jessica’s: that the prison system, correctional officers and anybody else working for the legal system were out to get her; that conditions inside the prison were unbearable; and that the prison monitored everything Jessica did, said and wrote.

Indeed, prison life was no vacation from life.

On another page Jessica gave an evaluation of the psych ward she had been once placed in. It was full of—you guessed it—mental patients. She wrote how many of them urinate and defecate everywhere except in the toilet. When the women menstruate, she added, blood is everywhere. They brought one woman into the ward who had complained of having ants and maggots in her cell bed. She was placed next to Jessica: She was bitten by the ants, yet nobody did anything. . . .

Hell on earth.

Nobody had explained to Jessica, obviously, that less was more—because for the next five pages of the letter, all she did was accuse doctors and guards, inmates and the justice system as a whole, of being out to punish her. She made claims of doctors watching her bleed and not helping, of cellmates preventing her from buzzing the nurse, of guards not allowing her to take showers or to use the bathroom. She had no TV, no radio, no contact with the outside world. The emotional stress was crippling. Yet, there was one thing that hurt more than anything else, she revealed: Albert Bailey, her stepfather, had died back on June 25 (Jessica’s thirty-first birthday) from a reported heart attack, and I was denied a family grieving visit . . . my grandfather passed away [last] April and I couldn’t go to his funeral. She hadn’t seen her kids in months. She wasn’t being allowed to write to Jeff. She was fed poorly. Many of the food servers in the jail were HIV positive and have hepatitis, she lamented. Inmates were required to wash their undergarments in the sinks and toilets inside their cells if they wanted them cleaned. She quoted an article from American Baby magazine describing how breast-fed babies were more unlikely to get ear infections. Then she broke off into a rant about the scores of diseases she and her newborn could get inside the prison. She promised the judge she’d meet any conditions asked of her by the court if the judge let her out on bond. Psych exams, she wrote, to demonstrate my mental state and lack of hostility. She said she’d check in daily with the powers that be. She wasn’t running. She just wanted to be with her newborn, husband and children.

I am a good person. . . . I am innocent, she wrote, but not before begging one last time for a chance.

The judge took everything Jessica said seriously. Thought about it. Then she kept the court’s order and denied Jessica McCord bond.

Jessica had her baby. Not long after the delivery, the infant was taken from her and placed with family members. Jessica was now the jailed mother of five. Christmas, 2002, came, and New Year’s Eve chimed in with a bang as word came down that Jeff McCord was getting a separate trial. Inside Jeff’s camp the discussion centered on the possibility of him taking a deal to avoid any chance of facing a jury that held his life in its hands. Jeff’s trial was scheduled for April, but Jessica would face a judge and jury first.

As Jeff contemplated his future, Jessica got busy doing the only thing she really knew how to do at this point: scribing more missives to Judge Vinson. This, mind you, as it was announced that Jessica’s trial was set to begin as early as February 12, 2003—almost a year to the day that she had allegedly masterminded and, with Jeff, carried out a plot to murder Alan and Terra.

This recent letter was shorter than those preceding it. Once again Jessica wanted Judge Vinson to know that she was not happy with her counsel. She demanded that the court appoint her new attorneys. She said her lawyers were not devoting enough time to preparing her case.

I find this to be intolerable, she wrote. She wanted an immediate hearing to rectify the problem. She said she had written every week since she was indicted late the previous year, and she was certain that the jail personnel was tampering with her mail.

The same old story. A broken freakin’ record.

By the end of the one-page letter, however, Jessica made a grave mistake—that is, if she was ever hoping to reach the judge on a personal level.

She blamed her legal woes on Judge Vinson. Jessica claimed that by the judge’s denial of her bond, Vinson had forced her to compromise her defense. Jessica wrote that the prosecution [was taking any] action [necessary], legal or illegal, to manipulate [her] conviction. A fair trial, in Jessica’s humble opinion, was now going to be impossible.

The court sent Jessica a form to fill out requesting new counsel. It was An Explanation of Your Complaint. It made the inmate state his or her case in writing, certifying that the words on the page were correct—and that he or she would be willing to sign a statement under oath. Jessica had her formal complaint notarized on January 8, 2003. Attached to it was a five-page explanation by Jessica of all the problems she’d allegedly had while incarcerated. It was a toned-down version of her previous diatribes to the judge.

A day later, Jessica sent a second letter “to whom it may concern,” this time trying to verify receipt of the complaint. Again she talked about her mail being tampered with and—in not so many words—how the entire prison system was out to get her. She also mentioned the idea that she wanted to file multiple complaints.

The loss of control Jessica had in her life—being confined to jail and unable to find out what was going on or to call people and tell them off and to manipulate those in her life—was eating her up inside. You can sense it in the pages of her letters. The desperation. The lack of ability to let go. The impossibility to manage her own impulse to reach out and attack people. Jessica McCord could not shut up, do her time and wait for her chance to speak in court. She had to get her hands wet. As she had done with Alan all those years, she believed she could influence the court system enough to play by her rules. She obviously thought that by writing the letters, filing complaints, making erroneous accusations against anyone not on her side, she would one day see freedom—that someone would listen and understand and fight for her cause. She wrote letters to a judge of the court, asking question after question, expecting, somehow, that in the simple act of asking, the allegations alone would free her. There was never one bit of remorse, accountability or sorrow for the deaths of Alan and Terra, regardless if she was responsible or not. She never once mentioned the fact that her children were now without a father. The letters focused entirely on her own needs. Symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder bled from every stroke of her pen. Jessica failed to recognize or understand—or maybe thought she was beyond reproach to face double-murder charges—that two people had been viciously mowed down with a hail of bullets, and the evidence—all of it—pointed to her and her husband.

56

By the end of January, Jessica got her sister involved in a new letter-writing campaign. This time the missives were sent to John Wiley, her attorney. The main thrust of the content focused on Wiley not doing exactly what Jessica McCord wanted. His integrity and honor were attacked. His concern for all his clients put under scrutiny. His ability to do his job severely strangled by the accusations and wild speculations of an alleged murderer. The guy had not said a word in open court and he was already being branded some sort of failure who clocked in and out of his professional life as though the freedom of his clients didn’t matter.

By February 9, 2003, Jessica had apparently settled her differences with John Wiley. On that Sunday, Wiley released a statement to the Associated Press citing his uncertainty as to whether Jessica was going to take the stand in her own defense. With Jessica’s trial days away, Wiley got busy getting ready. Jessica would have to put her dream of freedom on the back burner for now. No matter what she said, whom she wrote or complained to, Jessica McCord was scheduled to face a jury of her peers on matters that could put her on death row.

Roger Brown would not comment on his case.

Both sides agreed, however, that Jeff McCord was not expected to testify against his wife. His trial was still on the docket for an April gavel slap.

According to an Associated Press article, John Wiley released a statement saying prosecutors lack[ed] conclusive evidence tying the couple to the murders, adding, We’re very hopeful we can show the jury how the state is unable to prove her guilty without a reasonable doubt. Wiley claimed to be confident of his client’s innocence.

If nothing else, Jessica had an advocate in John Wiley—someone willing to fight for her alleged virtue, even if she had previously attacked the man’s credibility.

57

Jessica’s trial began at 8:53 A.M., Tuesday, February 11, 2003. It was a partly cloudy day. The temperature was forty-one degrees. The wind, barely noticeable, blew gingerly south-to-southwest at 3.5 miles per hour. Room 375 of the Mel Bailey Criminal Justice Center in downtown Birmingham, on Richard Arrington, Jr. Boulevard North, buzzed with talk of this high-profile double-murder case. Three men and eleven women were chosen to sit and hear Jessica’s case. Jefferson County chief district attorney Roger Brown, who had been as quiet as a CIA agent, had given the press no indication where he was headed with his case, other than calling the murders of Alan and Terra “vicious and brutal.”

Brown had his boxing gloves on. He was ready for the opening bell. His witnesses lined up behind him.

The veteran prosecutor had a deep, serious vocal tone, but it simultaneously came across as clear, sincere and unlabored. In the courtroom was where Brown felt most comfortable. Early on, Brown had decided to try the case himself and not hand it off to one of his attorneys. He was there to represent Alan, Terra and their families. He was there to see that justice would be served. And he was also there to extend a hand of virtue and morality to the jury in the hopes that they understood the severity of these inhuman, savage murders. Lest no one forget, if you believe Brown’s version of his case, these murders were calculated, premeditated and carried out with an evil recourse that was rarely seen.

Brown first gave a narrative of what he called “that weekend.” Of course, he was referring to the evening when Alan and Terra were murdered. How much Alan had looked forward to giving his deposition and ending a battle with Jessica to see his kids. Brown built up the suspense of Alan and Terra walking into Jessica’s lawyer’s office and then leaving with smiles on their faces. He said Alan was confident the depositions had gone well—maybe even his way. Then Brown told the jury how Alan and Terra had stopped and ate at a nearby hot dog shop. How they drove to Hoover, probably discussing how great it was going to be to see the kids again, then slowly, as if they knew something was wrong, approached the McCord house in the rental car.

“So, Alan and Terra, who had never been allowed in this house before,” Brown said in a thunderous roar, “turned back down . . . the driveway, probably hand in hand, toward the fence that led to the back . . . completely unaware that, step-by-step, they walked closer to the brink of eternity in those last few minutes of their very too-short lives.”

The prosecutor waited a beat. Allowed the gravity of those words to sink in.

“How did we come to this?” Brown asked before embarking on what was a long, violent and emotionally tormented history between Alan and Jessica. All the fighting on Jessica’s part. All the visitations Alan never had with his kids. All the chaos “that woman over there”—pointing, raising his voice—had caused Alan Bates to endure throughout his adult life.

Something the media hadn’t discovered, a suggestion by Brown that was never made public, came out of the experienced prosecutor’s mouth as he approached the motive portion of his opening. He was talking about that particular lightbulb moment for Jessica.

“And while she was in jail [during that Christmas contempt charge in 2001] . . . she read the book The Murderers. Told her inmate friends there [in jail] she would do anything, anything, to keep her kids.”

The Murderers, by W.E.B. Griffin, is a fictional exploration of corruption inside law enforcement. The plot involves the wife of a Philadelphia cop, who leaves her husband for another cop, after reporting his “dirty” tactics. The book is a Lifetime Television version of a team of murderers you’d least likely expect: cops. Roger Brown’s aim was to point out the fact that Jessica McCord was talking about how much better her life would be if Alan was gone, and also reading books for ideas on how to get away with murder.

“So she began to hatch this plot while in the Shelby County Jail,” Brown said, “because she not only was going to make his life miserable, she was going to end it! ‘Things would be a lot better if he was just dead,’ she said [to an inmate].”

Kaboom . . . there it was: the meat and potatoes of Brown’s case.

From that point on, Brown went through the murder, step-by-step. Then the cleanup. The coverup. The lies Jessica and Jeff told and the missteps they took as they tried explaining their way out of what the evidence had actually pointed to.

Brown’s opening was short, only about fifteen minutes. Brown was all about getting to the heart of the matter—and here, in this case, Brown was certain that the evidence and his list of witnesses would speak to that. He didn’t need to add anything to the truth. From Brown’s point of view, the more sugarcoating you frosted on the facts, the less impact they would ultimately have.

John Wiley was a bit more reserved. He kept his opening even shorter, simply standing and explaining to the jury that his client would be freed by that evidence Brown had so haphazardly tossed around.

“Now, look here,” Wiley said, standing. “This is the time of the trial when the lawyers stand up and say what they expect the evidence to be. What lawyers say in a trial is not evidence, and Judge Vinson will tell you that later on.”

Wiley said that there would be a “great lack of evidence of Ms. McCord’s guilt in this case.” He went through what he thought was Brown’s weakest points: no murder weapon, no true motive, no smoking gun pointing to his client.

Many squinted their eyes at some of what the lawyer said: No motive? Was he talking about the same case?

“Under the law, Ms. McCord is presumed to be not guilty, and that is evidence in this case and must be considered by you along with all of the other evidence in this case.”

That all sounded good. But Roger Brown and his investigators, the cops who had shown up in solidarity with the Bates and Klugh families, knew that what Wiley was suggesting was absolutely absurd. The accused were judged on the way they acted in court. The things they said. Their facial expressions. Whether they testified, or chose not to testify. Their lack of remorse. The way they whispered to their attorneys. Smiled with family and friends. And, perhaps most important of all, hearsay and the media. It didn’t matter what a lawyer stood and said, Wiley was right about that. What mattered more than anything—when push came to shove—was how a juror felt about a witness, a piece of evidence, a suggestion by an attorney. As unbalanced and unfair as this might sound, a defendant was judged the moment she sat down—maybe even before—whether she committed the crime or not.

Prisons, after all, are not only full of guilty people.

Wiley used the word “doubt” in his final few sentences three times, throwing it out there, hoping the jury would grab hold of any part of it.

“The evidence and the lack of evidence,” Wiley closed, “goes in concert with the presumption of innocence.”

Brown called Philip Bates. Alan’s father talked about raising his children, moving the family, and that night he and Joan went through hell realizing that Alan and Terra, never late or no-shows, had disappeared. He told the jury how he called rental car agencies and that Avis told him to phone the GBI.

And that was when his heart sank. “I knew.”

Wiley kept Philip focused on the time frame of that night, which would come up again and again during this trial. Philip was clear—Alan and Terra were supposed to pick the kids up at 6:00 P.M. and start heading to Georgia immediately.

Next witness.

Tom Klugh gave the jury memories of his daughter, accentuating the high note of how much she and Alan had loved each other. Then he talked about buying that new cell phone, calling his daughter and leaving Terra a voice mail she never heard.

“Thank you, Tom,” Brown said. “I believe that’s all I have.”

John Wiley did not stand. “No questions, Your Honor.”

Tom Klugh walked out of the courtroom, head bowed, shoulders slumped.

Brown had a representative from Avis prove to the jury that Alan had indeed rented the car his body was found in.

As Brown rolled his eyes, Wiley asked the Avis rep questions that seemed to be ridiculously unimportant. That witness was off the stand within fifteen minutes.

After a lunch break Alan’s longtime attorney, Frank Head, sat. At first, Head went through the extended explanation of the child custody matter at the center of the feud Jessica seemed to have with Alan. Head was clear and concise with his answers. There was no one in the room who knew the story of Jessica versus Alan better than Frank Head. He was obviously broken up by the deaths of Alan and Terra, unable to understand that a woman who did not want her ex-husband to see his children would go to such deadly lengths.

Written on Head’s face, and on the face of just about every witness Brown presented during this opening day, was the same, unanswerable question: why?

These murders—perhaps more than others—seemed too darn senseless.

As Head talked his way through the afternoon under Brown’s direct examination, one theme became clear: Jessica McCord had done everything in her power to keep the children away from Alan Bates. But the true denouement to that story was that she had done it all for no apparent reason. Even when the court demanded she allow the children to see their father, Jessica disappeared, wouldn’t allow it. Took down her mailbox. Didn’t answer her phone. Asked friends and family to lie for her. Hid at the homes of those same people. She took the kids out of school. Became violent and threatened Alan repeatedly. The truth was there—the evidence—in the letters Head had written to Jessica and her attorneys. In the testimonials Alan had given. In the transcripts of the days in court Jessica refused to show up for. It was all there. In. Fact. Perfectly laid out for anyone to sit down and see. The truth—Frank Head made clear to Jessica’s jury—was undeniable.

Jessica sat with a stoic bearing about her, her demeanor mostly unchanged, as each witness came in and put another nail in the door to her freedom. She could do nothing about any of it. She wore glasses and appeared skinnier than normal. The obvious wear and tear of life in prison, not seeing her newborn, and preparing for trial, had worn her down.

What became a hot-button issue as Frank Head answered questions—both on direct and cross-examination—was that Head had brought out the fact that Jessica McCord had lied so much to so many different people, it was impossible to trust anything she said. The woman had even lied about things she didn’t need to, like the duration of a supposed separation she and Jeff had endured during the fall of 2001.

There just seemed to be no end to the lies she told.

As testimony wrapped up on the first day with Pamela Merkel Sayle, the girls’ dance instructor, the jury heard again—this time from a neutral witness who really had no stake in the outcome of the trial—that Jessica had a terrible grievance against Alan. She was consistently angry with him. And this attitude of Jessica’s, so hostile and nasty, only increased after Alan met Terra, Sayle suggested with her testimony.

“She made comments . . . that if he ever tried to get the girls, he would regret it,” Sayle told the jurors.